Polarizing functionality for optical lenses is required to be transmissive by virtue of the application and is typically provided by use of a stretched polyester or polyvinyl alcohol, PVA, film that is subsequently imbibed with a conductive material such as iodine or suitable organic dye. Such stretched film polarizing sheets can have up to 99.9 percent polarizing efficiency. However, at such high levels of efficiency, the optical transmission is typically reduced to a level close to 20 percent. The application space of ophthalmic lenses requires that the polarizing film material is entrained within the lens package itself.
An alternative technology to stretched film is wire grid polarizers, WGP. Wire grid polarizers have typically only been used for relatively long wavelength applications such as microwave, infrared, IR, and longer wavelengths because the wires available for employing in the polarizers have been too large to be effective to polarize the shorter wavelengths, such as wavelengths within the visible spectrum, e.g. approximates 390 to 700 nanometers. In order to enable visible light polarization, the spacing of wires in a wire grid polarizers needs to be below the wavelength of visible light, and preferably significantly below the lowest wavelength, for example 200 nanometers.
Hence, there exist a need in the field for wire grid polarizers that are operable to efficiently polarize the relatively shorter wavelengths in the visible light spectrum.